Wed, 13 Dec 2017

#metoo

I long thought about whether I should post a/my #metoo. It wasn't a rape. Nothing really happened. And a lot of these stories are very disturbing.

And yet it still it bothers me every now and then. I was in school age, late elementary or lower school ... In my hometown there is a cinema. Young as we've been we weren't allowed to see Rambo/Rocky. Not that I was very interested in the movie ... But there the door to the screening room stood open. And curious as we were we looked through the door. The projectionist saw us and waved us in. It was exciting to see a moview from that perspective that was forbidden to us.

He explained to us how the machines worked, showed us how the film rolls were put in and showed us how to see the signals on the screen which are the sign to turn on the second projector with the new roll.

During these explenations he was standing very close to us. Really close. He put his arm around us. The hand moved towards the crotch. It was unpleasantly and we knew that it wasn't all right. But screaming? We weren't allowed to be there ... So we thanked him nicely and retreated disturbed. The movie wasn't that good anyway.

Thu, 15 Jun 2017

Apollo 440

It's been a while. And currently I shouldn't even post but rather pack my stuff because I'll get the keys to my flat in 6 days. Yay!

But, for packing I need a good sound track. And today it is Apollo 440. I saw them live at the Sundance Festival here in Vienna 20 years ago. It's been a while, but their music still gives me power to pull through.

Fri, 21 Apr 2017

Home

A fair amount of things happened since I last blogged something else than music. First of all we did actually hold a Debian Diversity meeting. It was quite nice, less people around than hoped for, and I account that to some extend to the trolls and haters that defaced the titanpad page for the agenda and destroyed the doodle entry for settling on a date for the meeting. They even tried to troll my blog with comments, and while I did approve controversial responses in the past, those went over the line of being acceptable and didn't carry any relevant content.

One response that I didn't approve but kept in my mailbox is even giving me strength to carry on. There is one sentence in it that speaks to me: Think you can stop us? You can't you stupid b*tch. You have ruined the Debian community for us. The rest of the message is of no further relevance, but even though I can't take credit for being responsible for that, I'm glad to be a perceived part of ruining the Debian community for intolerant and hateful people.

A lot of other things happened since too. Mostly locally here in Vienna, several queer empowering groups were founding around me, some of them existed already, some formed with the help of myself. We now have several great regular meetings for non-binary people, for queer polyamory people about which we gave an interview, a queer playfight (I might explain that concept another time), a polyamory discussion group, two bi-/pansexual groups, a queer-feminist choir, and there will be an European Lesbian* Conference in October where I help with the organization …

… and on June 21st I'll finally receive the keys to my flat in Que[e]rbau Seestadt. I'm sooo looking forward to it. It will be part of the Let me come Home experience that I'm currently in. Another part of that experience is that I started changing my name (and gender marker) officially. I had my first appointment in the corresponding bureau, and I hope that it won't last too long because I have to get my papers in time for booking my flight to Montreal, and somewhen along the process my current passport won't contain correct data anymore. So for the people who have it in their signing policy to see government IDs this might be your chance to finally sign my key then.

I plan to do a diversity BoF at debconf where we can speak more directly on where we want to head with the project. I hope I'll find the time to do an IRC meeting beforehand. I'm just uncertain how to coordinate that one to make it accessible for interested parties while keeping the destructive trolls out. I'm open for ideas here.

Fri, 10 Feb 2017

Anouk

I need music to be more productive. Sitting in an open workspace it helps to shut off outside noice too. And often enough I just turn cmus into shuffle mode and let it play what comes along. Yesterday I just stumbled upon a singer again that I fell in love with her voice a long time ago. This is about Anouk.

The song was on a compilation series that I followed because it so easily brought great groups to my attention in a genre that I simply love. It was called "Crossing All Over!" and featured several groups that I digged further into and still love to listen to.

Anyway, don't want to delay the songs for you any longer, so here they are:

Nobody's Wife: The first song I heard from her, and her voice totally catched me.

Fri, 27 Jan 2017

Icona Pop

Last fall I went to a Silent Disco event. You get wireless headphones, a DJane and a DJ were playing music on different channels, and you enjoy the time with people around who can't hear what you hear. It's a pretty funny experience, and it was one of the last warm sunny days. There I heard a song that was just in the mood for the moment, and made me looking up the band to listen more closely to them.

The band was Icona Pop, they have a mood enlighening pop sound that cheers you up. Here are the songs I want to present you today: